Self initiated menu brief - Building my menu

Above are some swatches that I threw together after scanning in my line work, I did this to get a feel for the final image and this also helped me visualize the appropriate colour palette.

And here are some background swatches, I decided on the blue, yellow and orange palette for my characters and was now looking for a colour to use for my background. I was really keen on the lime green but I tried to avoid it as green is always my go to colour and wanted to try something different.

This was my favourite from all of the swatches that I made, the only thing I was worried about was the yellow on yellow sections, I thought the use of shadows would bring the text away from the background but there was only one way for me to find out. The basic outline was there, the colours were 90% set in stone so now I had to start inking in final characters and neatening up the image. It was good to plan colours first as I believed it would allow the construction of the image to be more smooth. Below shows my process.

Before actually inking in my characters I made this mock flyer which would test various elements out, he tuned out pretty good and confirmed some extra details that I wanted to add to the characters like the dots on his skin. The way I drew the logo here actually looked better than the way that I had drawn it for the colour mock images so that was also something I could take from this practice run.

As you can see I took the logo from my test image and worked it into my final design, the previous one was too chunky and this one sits perfectly within the wrestling belt. I was skeptical at first but once I had seen my elements rendered digitally I was keen and ready to get stuck in.

Made a dramatic change here as I changed the background from yellow to this dark blue check pattern. The yellow was too distracting as I already have a lot of yellow on my image so I changed it out for something a bit more subtle yet dynamic.  At this point I just needed something different in the background so that I could focus on the content without getting distracted.

I believe this was the part where I realized how long this was going to take me, but still the first page had nearly been complete so it was pushing me forward and keeping my spirits high.

It was at this point that I got really excited as the first page had nearly been completed. I chose to not illustrate the mini crowns on my image as there was quite a lot of yellow as it was and a lot of little yellow crown would have been too much. I decided that I would finish the image and then revisit all of the empty spots and decide what to put there.

The last screen shot I had taken before I just went full throttle and finished it off, I went into my own little world and the image was just coming together at a much faster pace now. I had the muscle memory and started making less mistakes, I had learned how to make stitches and dot patterns from the previous page which helped speed up the making of the second. I was feeling very proud at this point as I could see the finish line for this menu.

And here is the completed piece, I changed the background to a slightly more purple version and added in swirling arrows and decorative dots to fill in the gaps. I had a slightly brighter background at one point but it made more sense to make it slightly darker so that it wouldn't take anything away from my image.

 I am over the moon with this piece, It pushed me to the max and I had learnt so much from it. My fonts have gotten better, my character design skills have increased and my ability to build a busy image has strengthened. This is my favourite piece that I have done so far and I can't wait to see it in context.